blesstonio, Gay Meat, Queer Dance Freakout, cqqchifruit

Keep up to date with our two-day Queer Art Party by RSVPing here: bit.ly/qap-sv

Antonio Robles Levine (@Blesstonio) is a Chicago-based DJ, classically trained musician, event/music producer, and dancer. Antonio is fascinated with club culture and has spent years studying and curating events in Chicago and Santa Barbara. His multicultural Puerto Rican, Black, and Jewish backgrounds lend him an attuned, eclectic ear ready to sonically compel audiences and create electric and magnetic dance floor experiences. As a club dancer committed to fostering an inclusive, dance-focused environment, Antonio believes in the legacies of clubs and dance floors as brave spaces for “queerness, blackness, transgression, community, inclusivity, freedom, liberation, inspiration, and radical joy” (Honey Dijon), where dancers and DJs are equal, active participants in protecting these sacred spaces of movement. Antonio is the co-founder and resident DJ of Fortune, a party series that centers dance as liberation and holds a safe space for the TQLGB+, Femme, Non Binary, BIPOC, and disabled communities. 

Antonio is currently nominated in the Chicago Reader’s 2022 “Best of List” for Best House Music DJ. Fortune is also nominated for Chicago’s Best Dance Party and Best LGBTQ party.

Antonio currently holds DJ residencies at Lincoln Hall and Podlasie Club. He has played shows at The California Clipper, smartbar, EXPO CHICAGO, Debonair Social Club, Easy Does It, Berlin Nightclub, and The Hideout. He was an honorary guest DJ at the Frankie Knuckles Tribute (Sept 2022) in partnership with The Chicago House Music Festival, DCASE, Rebuild Foundation, and The Frankie Knuckles Foundation.

Bed of Every is the debut EP from Gay Meat, the solo project of the North Carolina-based rock musician Karl Kuehn (Museum Mouth, Kississippi, Say Anything). Following a run of woozy one-off singles, the new EP features five unassuming bangers that meld well-worn hallmarks of indie and emo with Kuehn’s self-deprecating wit and brazen sentimentality. Coming in at just under 13 minutes, Bed of Every offers listeners a brief yet enthralling glimpse into the private world of a gifted songwriter with a lot on his mind.

Queer Dance Freakout is an interactive choose your own adventure spectacle inspired by the Neo-Futurists Infinite Wrench. This company of queer, trans, and nonbinary choreographers and storytellers will perform up to 30 dances that will have audiences booty shaking, grooving, and connecting with the queer community. Each dance is around 1 minute and the audience ques dances from the “playlist” by calling out the next dance they want to see in between numbers. Queer Dance Freakout is ever changing as each performance the company writes and choreographs new pieces so no Freakout is the same as before.

CQQCHIFRUIT (Jacquelyn Carmen Guerrero, she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent, originally from Miami, FL. They got their start as a DJ in 2013 playing with the Chances Dances collective in Chicago, along with their first exposures to house music and underground queer culture. Since then, they’ve performed in nightclubs, art galleries, museums, and festivals across Chicago, nationally, and internationally. Their approach to DJing comes from their love of dancing, and their sound incorporates elements from her Miami roots, Chicago/Midwest residence, and global interest, with an emphasis on tribal and vocal house, hypnotic trance, and bumping bass. Jacqui is also an accomplished visual and performance artist, often adding visual and vocal flair to their DJ sets, and is a co-founder of artist duo and production company TRQPITECA.

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